I think it's working! Speak, little bunny, whisper your madness! *feeds bunny another review*
CHAPTER ONE
It began with a strange medical condition that baffled ENT specialists, who dubbed it Acute Onset Nasodilatory Tissue Proliferative Disorder. Earnest middle-aged men in white coats and plushly appointed consulting rooms speculated about some novel mutation in the signalling cascade controlling apoptosis, somehow linked with reactivation of a population of chondroblasts and hyperproliferation of keratinocytes. The most peculiar aspect of this baffling condition was the patients they were seeing: across the globe, it affected televangelists and politicians exclusively, every time one of them made an appeal for more money or promised to do something for a constituency.
The general worldwide public quickly christened it Pinocchio's Disease, and multiple web pages making fun of the bewildered victims, with footage of their noses actually growing in real time, received millions of hits.
Then Celine Dion, Sarah Palin, Donatella Versace and Justin Bieber all made low key public announcements that they were going to retire from worldly life, and enter cloistered convents.
A botanist in southern Australia discovered a small grove of a previously undescribed tree that bore a high-fibre, low-calorie, vitamin-packed fruit that looked, smelled and tasted remarkably like a glazed doughnut.
A humble farmer in South America, who dabbled with plant breeding as a hobby, identified a sport strain of carrot that, when sliced, made carrot sticks that tasted like french fries.
A strange electronic phenomenon, which physicists attributed to an increase in sunspot activity, affected buildings where people gathered together, such as cinemas and theatres and auditoriums, so that mobile phones ceased to function inside such venues.
A number of struggling nursing homes experienced rains of electric wheelchairs, automatic recliner chairs and lobster bisque.
There was a short sharp shower of pancakes over the suburbs of Paris.
A delegation consisting of a humpback whale, a dolphin and a great white shark came ashore in Capetown, called a press conference, and politely requested that humans stop dumping so much garbage in the living room, please.
A certain Asian country carried out a missile test, and their pudgy leader went more ballistic than the payload when it fizzled out on the launch pad, and a big flag reading 'KWANG' (which is Korean for 'bang') popped out of the top.
His tantrum wasn't nearly as impressive as the one thrown by a certain leader in the Middle East, who nearly had a seizure after his bewildered gofers had to tell him that the high speed centrifuges used to purify radioisotopes for peaceful purposes had mysteriously disappeared, and on the heavy concrete foundations where these massive machines once stood there were now located rows and rows of music boxes with little plastic ballerinas spinning around to tinny music.
The leadership of a certain non-Arab state located in the Middle East nearly laughed themselves sick when word got back to them. However, they stopped laughing when messages began arriving that the gigantic wall they'd so carefully constructed out of large concrete blocks had, overnight, turned to toffee, carefully stamped with the appropriate documentation in chocolate to indicate on one side that it was kosher and on the other that it was halal, and now the occupants on both sides (who tended to be far less paranoid than those who led them) were busy licking their way to conciliation. (Strangely, that incident resulted in a lot of unlikely friendships when perfect strangers from either side of the toffee wall ended up licking through the same spot together, or sat down afterwards and consoled each other about their mutual tummy aches.)
Some bearded men who preached hate on a regular basis were horrified to wake up and discover that in their sleep, they had been tattooed with the phrase STOP IT - NO VIRGINS FOR YOU.
Two rabbles in Africa who were not disciplined enough to be called armies discovered, mid-battle, that their weapons would only fire liquorice bullets, and the populace they had been so keen on cowing and slaughtering were too busy to pay them any attention, since the thorny trees that were usually utilised for scant firewood had suddenly bloomed jars of peanut butter and protein bars. Several self-appointed senior offices were suddenly afflicted with terrible haemorrhoids, and by a strange set of circumstances (involving an ancient ritual and a Clever Woman who had her suspicions about what was happening), it was discovered that the only way to relieve the agonising symptoms was to set up a blackboard in a public place every day and have them write 'I MUST NOT ENSLAVE CHILDREN BECAUSE IT IS A SIN' a hundred times.
The doomsday, end-of-times crowd were in confusion. It was very difficult to go door-to-door, or on television, and preach that The End Was Nigh when strange things kept happening to make the world a better place. (If you were on television, there was always the distinct chance of contracting Pinocchio's Disease.) Episodes of cosmic comeuppance could be twisted to indicate that the wicked were being punished for their lack of belief (provided you had a good ENT surgeon on speed dial), but it was the announcement of the plan to open a clinic staffed jointly by Israeli and Palestinian doctors to treat the sudden spike in type II diabetes in that part of the world that really put the kybosh on their efforts.
So by the time Castiel appeared at Lourdes, introducing himself as humanity's new god, people were ready to believe that somebody was looking out for them. There was always a camera crew or three hanging around there, making some program or other either proving the place was authentic, debunking the myth, or looking for aliens, so he found himself at the centre of a hastily convened press call.
"Hello, my name is Castiel. I am your new god. I am a better one. I would like you to worship me now... no, I am not the Virgin Mary, I just told you, I am Castiel. No, not really. I was just passing through from checking on the peanut butter trees in Africa. Why are you here?... Really? No, not really. She did? That girl was excitable and suggestible, and under the influence of hallucinogenic substances produced by the fungi growing in the grotto. Now, as I was saying, I am your god now, and I would like you to worship me...
"Sir, I suggest you do not drink that, the man who peddles those flasks of water from the 'holy spring' actually filled them from a tap behind his shed, and the water it contaminated with the contents of a leaking septic system... oh. Well, it might be prudent to keep some anti-diarrhoeal medications with you for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. So, bow down and worship me... No, it will not work even if you boil it first. Why would anyone believe that drinking faecally-contaminated water would make their limbs grow back? No, madam, I assure you, E. coli infection does not cure spina bifida. There is some suggestion that infection with helminthic parasites may facilitate recovery from allergies, but...
"No, madam, your child is not autistic, merely thoughtful for his age – I would be far more concerned about your own neuroses and appalling dietary habits. Perhaps the doughnut trees and carrot fries will help you to reach a more sensible weight.
"Now, as I was saying, I am your new god, I will be a better one, and all I ask in return is... Oh, very well. Please form an orderly queue. I would like to do this as efficiently as possible; there are lepers in India requiring my attention. Yes, of course you may drink it if you are thirsty but I assure you it doesn't... no, not that water, I just told you, it's contaminated and will make you... never mind, just join the queue..."
They watched the footage of Castiel healing the sick, restoring the lame, relieving an overanxious mother of her neuroses and presumably heading off some nasty bouts of gastroenteritis.
"Well, he's broken cover," shrugged Bobby, as they watched the footage that was running on every major network, "And gettin' on with the business of godding."
"Well, he can damned well get his feathery ass here, and do his healing on Sam, preferably before lunch," griped Dean, looking anxiously to his little brother. Sam had woken up about twenty hours after Castiel had disappeared, and seemed to be fine. Well, except for...
"I don't think he knows about second breakfast," Sam told him, tapping at his laptop.
Dean sighed.
"I'd try to get you onto a game show somewhere, if we didn't need you here to work your internet mojo and track what he's doing," he humphed at Sam.
"I like to watch," Sam nodded, not looking up from the screen.
"I'm gonna get something to eat," decided Dean. "You want some rabbit food, Bugs?"
"Lunch is for wimps," Sam shrugged.
"I'm gonna make us some coffee," Bobby said. "You want some, boy?"
"I take it black, like my men," Sam replied.
Bobby patted Dean on the back until his choking episode spluttered to a halt.
"I'll, er, just go put on a pot, then," he muttered.
OMG It's working! It's alive! It's alive! Live, raconteurial rodent, live!
Reviews are the Winchester Of Your Choice Gambolling Playfully Under The Doughnut Tree Of Life!